Arzhen didn't know what possessed him.
He had watched the entire scene from his table, his lunch forgotten. He had seen Cecilia's apocalyptic entrance, the hurricane of her hair, the raw tracks of tears on her cheeks, a sight so alien it short-circuited his understanding.
He had seen the slap, the violent, shocking punctuation to her distress.
Cecilia never cried.
Not when he'd dismissed her with practiced cruelty. Not when he'd turned his back, leaving her in corridors thick with scorn. Not when the gossip had painted her as a desperate, pathetic stalker, a failed copy. Not ever. Her composure had been a fortress, impenetrable. Not even for him.
But today, that fortress lay in smoking ruins.
He saw Cecilia, the constant, the fixture, the quiet, brilliant girl whose emotional landscape he'd assumed was as flat and manageable as a painted backdrop, reduced to a public, sobbing wreck.
